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(Un)registered businesses

Started by memenode, September 05, 2008, 07:31 AM NHFT

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memenode

I have a small web business while it's making me enough for a basic living at this point, due to the laws of my country it is not enough to register because all registration requires buying their health and pension insurance plans, no questions asked. I don't want to mention the country again.

So I'm essentially compelled into CD even before I began discovering voluntaryist ideas. Now that I did, I can hardly imagine myself ever letting in and giving so much money to the state. And I am now in a process of creating a new online venture designed from the start to drastically grow my revenues.

So the question is, once I have significantly greater earnings, yet still do not want to register and submit to theft, what do I do?

Mainstream style entrepreneurs generally suggest doing everything "by the book", which entails doing all of the necessary registrations and paying all of the taxes. Their reasons for this are:

1. "it's the only "ethical" or "fair" way"
2. "you don't want to end up in jail in trying to build your wealth"
3. Asset protection, limited liability
4. Reputation

Now, reason 1 is bull*hit and we know it. Reason 2 actually no longer scares me as much as it used to BUT it is BAD for business and I'd love to avoid it, pretty please. Reason 3 and 4 are actually things I'm still interested in, but if I could somehow get these without the state that'd be great.

Specifically, asset protection probably is the easiest thing to settle without the state. Just differentiate your funds, offshore or whatever... "Limited liability" is not something I really want because I believe I should be 100% liable for my business practises. However, in today's screwed up world I am liable for doing perfectly good business too. All I have to do is not comply with a particular legislation and I am a criminal who deserves to be prosecuted, and there may be, you never know, some competitor who would like to take advantage of that! Which is a problem. And tied into that is reputation. How can an unregistered business be reputable in a world in which it's considered a huge red flag if someone is registered in the wrong country, let alone not registered at all???

My options are ultimately the following:

- Don't register anywhere, continue as is and just.. be careful and hope for the best.
- Register in my country and submit to their theft, funding the system I hate in the process. Not very agorist of me either.
- Register offshore, as a lesser evil, with little or no taxes. This could address the reputation issue a bit, as well as liability and asset protection, but nowadays is considered a suspicious strategy and anonimity protection is also questionable, especially since in the earlier days of my web activity I was stupid enough to link my web sites to my real name all over the web! I killed my anonimity.
- Move to New Hampshire. If I move illegally then it's pretty much back to the first option. I am not sure I like that. If I move legally... I'm subject to high income taxes right? I guess moving to NH is the best way to continue my business related CD since I've got a network of friends who'd support me, right? :)

What do you think?

Russell Kanning

why would your online business have to "live" anywhere?
wouldn't the catch be how you get money?
when you get here ... you can be on permanent vacation. :)

memenode

Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 05, 2008, 07:49 AM NHFT
why would your online business have to "live" anywhere?

Being online, it wouldn't have to, of course. Registration is from government's perspective a mechanism of control and regulation, but from the market's perspective it seems to be mistakenly seen almost like a "seal of approval" or a sign that it's a "legitimate operation" and all that kind of stuff. So the consequence of not registering anywhere is, from government's perspective criminalization ("we can't track you and your money") and from market's perspective questionable reputation ("who are you, what you're hiding, why is everyone registered and you aren't" etc.).

Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 05, 2008, 07:49 AM NHFT
wouldn't the catch be how you get money?

You mean how to withdraw earned money or how to earn money in the first place? About earning, of course, that's a big part of what business is for and I'd love to take care of only that and just not bother with all this other stuff. About withdrawals, that's fairly easy nowadays, though sometimes it requires local banks which increases a risk of being surveyed and tracked, but luckily there are increasingly options that don't involve much of that..

Quote from: Russell Kanning on September 05, 2008, 07:49 AM NHFT
when you get here ... you can be on permanent vacation. :)

Hehe, yeah, I'd love to. :P

FTL_Ian

When you open a bank account at TD Banknorth they don't ask for proof of a DBA so you can get an account in your business name (and your name) just by telling them the name.

Asking the government permission to do what is a human right makes you a slave - don't do it!

John Edward Mercier

It would depend on particulars... but you don't have limited liability if the harm is caused by your actions/decisions, and then only somewhat for those acting as your agent.

memenode

Quote from: FTL_Ian on September 05, 2008, 09:11 AM NHFT
When you open a bank account at TD Banknorth they don't ask for proof of a DBA so you can get an account in your business name (and your name) just by telling them the name.

Do they accept international customers?

I'm already using payoneer.com which sends an ATM card for all withdrawals and is pretty easy to use, but it'd be nice to have an actual account somewhere for wire transfers that I can withdraw by a debit card so I don't have to use checks through local banks (which require an ID and increasingly ask for "purpose of payment" so that if it's a business related transaction they can demand opening of a business account which the government can oversee at their leisure, although a bank I use this for never followed that rule so far so I guess they're just as annoyed by that regulation as I am.. :P ).

Quote from: FTL_Ian on September 05, 2008, 09:11 AM NHFT
Asking the government permission to do what is a human right makes you a slave - don't do it!

That's the idea, though it can be a little frustrating hearing the opposite story from so many other people which also has a tendency to conspire with remnants of my old mentality on the issue just to bother the yet unpurged irrational part of myself... I need people to tell me more what you just did.  :D

Quote from: John Edward Mercier on September 05, 2008, 09:30 AM NHFT
It would depend on particulars... but you don't have limited liability if the harm is caused by your actions/decisions, and then only somewhat for those acting as your agent.

Right.. and I'm not a big fan of "agents"... This isn't USA though, but then agains they followed the same model. We have sole proprietorship, LLC and corporation just like in US. The difference from what I know is mainly in that they absolutely require everyone to buy their health/pension insurance (for a flat monthly fee) with the registration. They're mutually inclusive.

What I wonder though.. say I never register and then someone decides to sue me for whatever reason. How does that happen? Who do they sue? What do I do? I suppose any lawsuit would easily end up turning government's attention to the fact the biz is unregistered incurring an automatic penalty. In other words, if I'm to be unregistered I better never ever get sued for anything, not even the smallest thing, considering that governments have a monopoly on justice.

Although, I suppose I could just offer a private settlement to whomever is wanting to sue... This is all hypothetical though. I can't imagine I would ever provoke someone so much to want to go that far, but you never know. They're people just looking for any opportunity to make cash abusing the system this way...

John Edward Mercier

An agent... would be someone you hire and give power to act on your behave.

Many sole proprietorships in NH are not registered. Pretty sure I could open the newspaper today and find several people selling firewood/etc. without ever registering a business.

When a business is registered as an LLC or Corporation... unless you are personally liable, the limited liability is the value of the business assets.

FTL_Ian

Quote from: gu3st on September 05, 2008, 10:08 AM NHFT
Quote from: FTL_Ian on September 05, 2008, 09:11 AM NHFT
When you open a bank account at TD Banknorth they don't ask for proof of a DBA so you can get an account in your business name (and your name) just by telling them the name.

Do they accept international customers?

No idea.  You can ask them.  I thought you were coming to NH.   :-\

memenode

Quote from: FTL_Ian on September 05, 2008, 12:12 PM NHFT
No idea.  You can ask them.  I thought you were coming to NH.   :-\

Not yet. It's impossible right now, but it's possible I'll pursue that option in about a year if I succeed (and I should) at growing my business. Then the financial issue would not be a problem and all I'd need to figure out is how to get there legally, cause I probably couldn't illegally, and wouldn't be able to do effective civil disobedience if I am not even considered a citizen.

On the other hand I guess "impossible" shouldn't be a word to be familiar with, but let's just say it's a whole lot more difficult now that I can barely even afford a mere visit, let alone coming in to stay. So I better wait a while before I start seriously planning the move.

Thanks

doobie

I don't know what your business is, but here's something i'll recommend:

1) Make sure you can hide your funds well (unfortunately Swiss bank accounts don't tend to meet that requirement any more).
2) Make sure you can bug out of country on a moments notice or become someone else.
3) Don't do anything that your customers can sue you for.  Depending on where you live you'd be personally responsible and will probably make you a target of the gubermint too.

Luke S

Quote from: doobie on September 05, 2008, 05:10 PM NHFT
(unfortunately Swiss bank accounts don't tend to meet that requirement any more).

You're kidding me?!

memenode

Quote from: doobie on September 05, 2008, 05:10 PM NHFT
I don't know what your business is, but here's something i'll recommend:

1) Make sure you can hide your funds well (unfortunately Swiss bank accounts don't tend to meet that requirement any more).
2) Make sure you can bug out of country on a moments notice or become someone else.
3) Don't do anything that your customers can sue you for.  Depending on where you live you'd be personally responsible and will probably make you a target of the gubermint too.

Not a bad advice I think. I might be wrong and I don't want to delude myself, but I think online businesses have a bit of an advantage in those areas. They go with you wherever you are. All you need is internet access. Money can go all around the world. All you need is an ATM card to withdraw, at least smaller amounts, and in fact that's all you really need on a day to day and month to month basis. Bigger purchases can be done by electronic transfers anyway. So you're essentially a ghost in the machine that is the world. :)

And when this sort of a business grows up it becomes easier to move from one place to another.

Cheers

John Edward Mercier

Major advantages.
Its why the FedRes BOG is in a pissy mood.
They were designed to handle a world where credit was primary... abstract capital is beyond the system.

Julius Ray Hoffman

#13
Dude, you are waaaayyy overthinking this...

You are obviously an e-biz, affiliate marketer, competitive webmaster, or maybe you just schlock porn... Whatever... it's all the same.

Register your sites with anonymized registration (I use Namecheap's WhoIsGuard and GoDaddy's DomainsByProxy). As long as your sites don't do anything illegal, your info will be safe and you don't need to worry about lawsuits.

Here's what you do: Set up your affiliate accounts in whatever country you are now. If the affiliate programs are American, you might need to provide a W-8 to certify you are foreign and therefore your income doesn't need to be reported to the IRS. I think all affiliate programs in America are required to get this information, but not all do... The big ones- AFF / Medley for instance- do. Anyway you won't need to complete a W-9 or provide a tax id number because you are foreign.

Take your Payoneer card from your foreign country. Maybe you want to get an EPassporte too- also sent to your foreign address. Then just continue to get paid that way after you move to NH. Take your funds out in cash at the nearest ATM machine. Nobody knows the money was every paid to you in America.

Don't register your business because it's none of the government's concern. And anyway the whole idea of business registration is really a gray area when it comes to business without customer traffic. Call yourself a "consultant" or "independent contractor"-- very few of these folks actually obtain business licenses and registrations etc...

doobie

#14
Quote from: Luke the Truthteller on September 05, 2008, 09:46 PM NHFT
Quote from: doobie on September 05, 2008, 05:10 PM NHFT
(unfortunately Swiss bank accounts don't tend to meet that requirement any more).

You're kidding me?!

Every few years they add to the list of things that can make the anonymous nature go away....but it is not confidential for the following....

Money laundering is a process whereby the origin of funds generated by illegal means is concealed (gun smuggling, drug trafficking, etc.).

so uncle sam only has to claim and make up proof of the above...